Ask Me a Parenting Question - Live Q & A

0:01 okay now we're good all right just wanted to come on say hello see who comes on if you guys have any questions uh feel free to pop them in the chat i'm using my laptop this time which is a little bit smarter because in the past i've used my my phone and i couldn't see any of the chats that are coming in so um we'll give it a little bit

0:34 and see when uh hello hey tan man you guys have questions you want to uh just decided to come on live see what how everyone is doing feel free to uh throw something in the chat no tan man there's there's some other people you're the only one on uh who's typing but uh i think we've got some other people coming on

1:06 hey mitchell how are you thanks for coming in i think it's uh it sends out a notification for some people um that they get to see you know sort of what's going on and it'll say that i'm live so that they can come into the stream but if you do have questions throw them in there i'm happy to uh take some questions here otherwise it'll be quite boring i could just talk

1:38 if anyone wants to hear that type that in too if you don't want to ask questions and you just want me to talk but i always like when somebody has a specific question so mike asks hello what do you do when your teen is hanging out with someone who is a major negative influence yeah so we've talked about this my wife and i and we've had some um because our children are about to be teens one of the things you do is you provide

2:09 them um i i know someone who did this they provided them an alternative to the hanging out and so what i mean by that is let's say you know whether boy or girl whatever and they say you know hey i'm going to go hang out with billy and you know you don't want them to say oh man that sucks because i was going to go take you over to xyz and we were going to be able to

2:31 do this and this um that's one way of actually you know providing them a better alternative than hanging out with the other person the other is obviously to talk to them if you haven't already about their decisions and how they get to choose what they want to do um i'll assume you've already had the conversation and saying hey you know what do you think

3:01 of this person as decisions you know and actually asking them about that you know we've had some situations like that with our kids and our kids will respond thankfully and say well i know that they made some bad decisions with some of the things they're doing i'm still their friend but if they're going to do x y or z i'm not going to be friends with them so you can't avoid that your child is going to be exposed to people who are going to

3:26 make bad decisions but you obviously don't want them to be influenced and hang out with them so i think you have to have that talk and say you know hey what do you think about their decisions you got to be careful that you're saying no no no no it's like a boyfriend or girlfriend you say no they're going to probably um you know but they probably um you know sometimes will rebel so the best you can do is just give them

3:55 that foundation about asking them for you know hey when you're faced with this what are the decisions you are going to do you know and the hope is obviously that you i mean it's hard because as you know you've had 12 years or 13 years you who are hoping that you've taught them all these things um but it's hard because if you know the other thing too is i would ask the child um i would ask the child

4:22 what it is that they get out of hanging with them you know what what is it that you like about sarah you know what is it that you like about tim whatever and listen to them and they might say well hey they're actually really fun and you know so i think part of it is having a you know pretty mature dialogue about that and hopefully hopefully that helps um see here's another one lynchy any tips on managing work-life balance with a new

4:48 baby um having a hard time work logging off time because i get pings on slack from management after hours well that's your decision of whether you need to you know reply to those after hours um so here's my story is you know i i was a consultant and have been for many years and i created my own problem by responding to those um you know i can ask my assistant and say um you know i i send things at all times of

5:21 the night it just depends on when someone's going to respond but if you're asking me to you know what are the tips well you can tell management that you have a child and you can't respond or you cannot pay attention to your child you know you you somewhere it's going to break you can't be everything to everybody at all times and i think you know it's kind of i don't know that there's an action you know an answer to that

5:43 because you have a six month old and you also have to you know take care of some business so if you have a significant other that can swap and and share times you know but you know it is difficult if you're a full-time you know employee or business person and you also have a young child it is tough there's not really a you know um the only thing i can say is that you just block out time

6:13 and you say well i'm not gonna do work during this time i'm not gonna check my my phone i'm gonna put my phone down you know that's the only really thing that you can you can do so abe asks any tips on how to work on patience with a six-month-old baby yeah are you asking for your baby to have patience or you have patience i'm assuming you um yeah there's there's a lot

6:45 uh you can't take things personally i mean patience usually means that something's sort of getting at you and patience the loss of patience oftentimes is because we don't understand what's going on or we don't know how to handle a situation at least that's for me so a lot of what'll happen for me is uh you know i lose my patience because i get upset with some situation and so that is yourself and that is working on

7:11 mindfulness it's taking deep breaths it's taking time it's meditation you know these are the things i have a video on patience um there's one you can probably just search for it on the channel that would probably be a good one to go over um uh david hey i have a few questions i have a nine-year-old girl i'm mentally preparing for a specific topic of

7:42 discussion puberty i'm a little nervous about this conversation where how do i know that i've said the right things and covered everything possible so david what i would suggest um go and get a book um i don't know the exact name but there was a lot of them on amazon and it's about children going through puberty and you use that book as the springboard for discussion i've done this it worked really well you give your child the book

8:10 and you say or you say hey let's we're going to read this together and guess what it's going to probably be uncomfortable for you at first but so what it needs to be done that's part of being a parent so what you do is you give them the book and or read it together and then that you know like what i did was you know we read a chapter he read a chapter and then we discussed

8:32 what was going on in that chapter and then we said hey are there any questions about that it was really good to have the guidance of the book as it covered a lot of different topics and some things that i probably wouldn't have thought of and in a way that's very understanding and so then it it lends itself to be able to um then have the discussion afterwards so i think that would be that would be the

8:58 best thing hey guys coming in quick here um jackson awesome you've been a dad for over a little over two weeks good to see you in here um guys i would recommend too if you're not well you're probably on here because you're subscribed um i'm gonna be releasing a webinar soon be on the lookout for it it's a free webinar you can sign up and we're going to be going over

9:28 some things about being a better dad it's going to be free so don't worry but i'll also talk about my program a little bit um but it yeah so it's gonna be hopefully next week i'm gonna be launching that um as you can see we've been busy i've got a lot of new videos that have been coming out uh back on the horse i was gone for a while and that's simply because i was creating the program that i

9:52 now have it's comprehensive course um with with curriculum it's live q a with me every week and coaching if you are interested in that there's a link on my um on all the recent a couple of three recent videos or you can go to the website dad university dot com and click on program and that you'll have access to me access to private discussions and then also a pretty um you know pretty

10:24 uh specific uh curriculum as far as everything from mindset dealing with a partner communication all of that david thank you very much uh that was very nice of you um yeah i i think you know understanding um like all the different assets aspects of being a father is really important you know when you have a week old or you have a six month old you are not in most cases most people

10:54 aren't thinking about parenting they're thinking about surviving you know you're thinking about changing feeding you know all that stuff so this course and this program is really designed for people who are in the parenting stage so it's like kind of one and a half two plus with their kids age and once you get there that's where you start worrying about all the other things and that's when you need some assistance and you need some coaching so

11:20 be sure to check that out if you are interested we're making new videos for everybody um if you guys have questions put them in the chat i'm trying to get over to to these let me see if there's anything i missed um tan man asked what do you do as a job i have multiple jobs um i do this um a lot of my time is this and then i also have been doing internet marketing for 20 plus years

11:48 so um uh rizwan any tips on creating a good sleeping pattern for a newborn yes um i actually used a sleep program uh there was a i want to say it's you know get your baby to sleep kind of thing at the time and there was some a lot a lot of good

12:19 tips the biggest thing is the schedule and you've got to do that's two things it's schedule and it's routine and you know for a newborn you can't force too much you know different newborns have different schedules and their rhythms and you start you know you can try to get them to sleep but you know i we we bought a shirt or a onesie for my son when he was born and it was like

12:50 you know party in my crib at 2 a.m he just you know he just wanted to be up in the middle of the night and so um you know luckily my my luckily my wife was breastfeeding and so she would be up in the middle of the night and then when i was home and i was or i was able because i was self-self-employed i would watch him during the morning so that she could sleep you know it just you gotta have to

13:14 figure that part out but for tips for sleeping i would say try to get on a good feeding schedule and a good nap schedule um you know and there's a lot of people that are better experts at that than me um but uh you know what that worked for us is just being pretty diligent about the sleeping and the feeding at the same time all the time you know and being pretty pretty good about that and then also we called it starting the

13:42 descent which was you know when we knew that the bedtime was six o'clock or 6 30 which is good very early bedtime um we would start at 5 30 you know we'd do the bath we do the thing like just making sure we're consistent with that time um hey billy uh or i'm a bad fish 92 billy here just found out my fiance is pregnant wondering what the best things are that i can do for her during

14:12 pregnancy um i would suggest you watch some of the previous videos that i had i've got a lot of videos on pregnancy and how to help your your significant other during that time that's probably the best just so i can get to some of the other questions um but the best thing you can do is support her being empathetic of looking at it from her perspective understand she's going through her own stuff you know there's a lot of things that

14:37 you can do but the other thing is um probably the best is ask her ask her what you can do and how you can be supportive and say you know i really want to be there for you i want to help what are some things that you would want me to do see what she says every woman's different um a t3 expectant father awesome glad the videos are helpful good to have you here um

15:09 anirban dos how do you balance your work and manage a newborn well i just had actually had said that you don't you know you've got to allocate specific time or you know write it on the calendar it's it's very very hard you know it depends if you have significant if you have a significant other or you have family or you know something that that obviously makes it a lot easier um but it's hard it's hard because you

15:33 have to be able to manage your time and and you can't be perfect in every situation you know you're not going to be the most amazing parent and the most amazing employee or entrepreneur or anything and then the best son or daughter and then the best you know husband or wife it's like you can't do it all you can't um you know so you can be good at one thing one at a time you know and maybe

16:03 at one day you're allocating you say you know i'm gonna work extra long on this day but then or talk to your boss and say you know hey i really want to you know move my hours or something maybe you can move your hours to morning and be done earlier or you know you just got to be creative with it and most bosses nowadays have to be or if not most of them are you know as long as you're getting your work

16:25 done most of them are pretty flexible unless you work in a facility or you work in on certain hours but other than that you know you got to ask for it there's no harm in asking um peyton said what's the one thing now that you wished you knew when you had your first child oh there's so many um well i always answer with empathy that's the obvious one um i i wish i was more empathetic towards my wife and towards my child

16:58 when they were born when my child was born of just really like understanding that it wasn't just about me and like you know i would get upset at things or take things personally and you know all of these things i've learned now that um you know you just don't know what you're doing you know i'm an expert now because i've been through it and made a ton of mistakes um you know i i did go through parenting

17:21 classes and studied a ton and did everything but like i still make mistakes if you just watch my you know call it mistakes or learning experiences if you just watch my most recent video being overwhelmed i talked about i was yelling at my kids you know and the difference is is that i'm realizing what i'm doing and i'm able to process it and stop and fix things um but maybe that's maybe that's the answer what's the one thing i knew

17:48 um is that i was going to make a lot of mistakes and that those mistakes are okay maybe that's a is that a good answer um sean asks what do you recommend financially before getting in to a relationship uh currently single and i watch your videos to be prepared in case something were to happen that's one of the smartest questions i've heard not many single people think of the

18:19 financial aspects of it you know being financially stable is certainly something that you have to consider um before getting into her you're talking about two different things one's getting into a relationship the other is having a child um you know it depends on your financial situation and the financial situation of your spouse um you know here's the thing like my my spouse and myself we were both financially independent when we came together and so yes that does make

18:51 things easier we also had each we had assets each of us had assets so there was a lot of agreement in you know hey what's mine is mine what's yours is yours and then you know what we build together builds together like you know when you get together you don't plan on being apart but the reality is is that 50 of the people end up you know getting a divorce so just be prepared that you know um

19:16 something could happen so i think just getting yourself financially stable is probably a good thing only got a couple more minutes here uh if you've got any more questions throw them out how did you guys like this chat put in a thumbs up or uh um you know let me know if this is something that you would like to see regularly i i've i've done some you know in the past sometimes it's hard to find the time in

19:40 between recordings and things to do this but i like coming on and just answering some questions um it seems it seems kind of fun maybe we can switch colors and you guys can decide which color you like how about that one does anyone like red we'll have it we'll do a vote um how about green there we go let's do green

20:13 um what's the best way to deal with bad moods after naps our toddler is currently waking up very cranky um so mike i'm not a sleep expert but i might say um that your toddler might not be getting enough sleep could that be the case you know taking the naps maybe having them go to bed a little bit earlier may uh mike if you can maybe you can uh write in what time do they go to sleep at night

20:45 and what time do they get up in the morning um i was very surprised when i learned about sleep training that we were letting our child go to sleep too late um it was actually um it was actually 6 30 i think that we you know that we we looked at it um at going to sleep and so that was something that you know we just realized we were

21:16 they were our child was going to sleep way too late so they actually weren't getting enough sleep so that could be you know the other is toddlers are just cranky i hate to say that but they are um well so go to around about nine and then getting up at nine at 8 30 or 9 in the morning well that's good i guess that's 12 hours but i would say try to go to bed at like 8 or

21:44 7 30 and see what happens um you know try it a little bit earlier bedtime and see what happens um you know they they do need 14 hours or so oh he's getting two hours in the afternoon so that's that's pretty good um i mean a lot of people are i don't know that there's a specific problem that you have or what you're doing you know maybe it's just when he does get up is and do something enjoyable you know

22:12 find something that you know he enjoys is so that when oh i said son i don't know that it's a son it could be a daughter um you know it could be something that just they enjoy you know just like you know that they love this game so right when they get up in the morning or you know or in the afternoon you know you have a game ready for them you know that the crankiness and the

22:36 toddler-ness doesn't last forever that's the one thing about parenting is like none of the stages last forever it's like you feel like you've got it under control and then something else you know something else happens so um david i think doing this regularly would be great knowing that i could reach someone with more experience to help me through something in the moment that would be pretty helpful david uh depending on your situation you might want to consider

23:03 our program um if you do have um let me see here um the dad university program is access to me on a weekly basis um and also has our curriculum and that could be helpful because then if you had questions you actually could ask them anytime you wanted um if you do that you can go to the website click on program and and check out a little bit more

23:33 about that mike you agree tune in whenever i can go live yeah it's hard it's hard to have a set thing i i did a class or i mean i did a live show for a while that was fun um it's just it's a lot of work especially if i have to prepare but people come with questions and i don't have to prepare but you know then you have the silence when nobody's asking a question and then you have to fill it otherwise

23:58 you guys would just sit and watch me sit here that's not that exciting um so see like now nobody's typing in more questions so we just all sit here in silence i can sing i actually i can't sing i won't sing any other questions that you want to ask um sean i will discuss it uh if you sign up i'll discuss it because it kind of depends uh if you do that

24:30 um uh sharkrish how to convey a message with our children when we are in a bad mood um i'm not sure if you watched my latest video uh being overwhelmed but i talked just about that of how i conveyed the message that i was i was pretty honest with my children and just said here's what i'm feeling right now and here's why um but i need to be

25:01 better at you know dealing with that and it's not anything that they're doing granted if they could be obnoxious and loud it doesn't help because you are already on edge but that's my problem you know that's my problem to not be able to uh regulate that and control that so um so that's how i would communicate it i mean it's being honest it's you know when when you start if you start when they're very young and you have honest conversations with

25:32 them it becomes much much easier you know as they get a little bit older like my kids are 12 and 10 it's easy for me to have that conversation with them you know just because i've been having that conversation for so long so you know i forget sometimes like i like i yelled at my kids the other day but i immediately was like realized okay this is not how i wanted to come home from work um and so i explained to them and just

25:55 said you know i'm sorry i could have handled that better that's always a good line you know i apologize i could have handled that better or hey i'm not feeling great right now and unfortunately i'm just you know i'm not communicating in my best way that's it you just be honest um sorry if i'm pronouncing it wrong kayola what's the biggest difference i should expect having a son versus a daughter

26:28 wipe in the other and just make sure with a daughter you're wiping in the right direction that's it you know away you're you're wiping front to back um other than that you treat daughters and sons pretty much the same in fact i have some videos about that um my daughter i made it very consciously or i made a conscious effort to treat her very similar to my son and that was being physical um it was doing the things that i did

27:02 with my son it was you know we used to call her our little dirt girl she would go and like be in a dress and then like rolling around in the dirt and you know she entered martial arts with her brother like there is no difference um in fact i don't think they should be treated differently um you know boys and girls are different by some you know not only physically but there are some brain and

27:35 things but the majority of those things and the way that we deal with them is from our interactions with them so in general you know i had a doctor who had talked about this you know men or are say fathers with their sons act differently than they do with their daughters with their daughters they're more cerebral they might sing they might uh be a little bit more affectionate you know they uh more talkative versus with their sons they're more physical

28:05 that's just what dads think that they should be doing doesn't make any sense but that's what they do so i think if anything you blur the lines a little bit you treat them the same way and then as they develop and as they grow um you know then those differences become a little bit more apparent but there's other outside influences in those differences you know um but my daughter can do anything a boy wants to do and if my

28:37 son wants to do something a girl wants to do that's cool too like it doesn't it doesn't matter i think if anything rather than boy girl we probably treat them differently based on their uh personalities and spirit that's probably a bigger way that we differentiate how they're dealt with each other you know or how we deal with them you know whereas my son might be one way and i know that if like we have a discussion it's gonna

29:03 i treat it a little bit differently and how i would discuss it or approach it with my daughter maybe that's the difference but it has nothing to do with whether they're boy or girl um my newborn son stephen my newborn son is one week is it weird that i'm thinking about mental development no like autism no uh nothing is weird you know i mean those are all valid concerns you know we're always concerned about the the health and mental well-being of our

29:33 children and so um you're gonna have those kind of thoughts your whole life you know i mean like i said my kids are older and i constantly think about um you know just at their safety and that they're making a decision that's good for them and i mean it's the consistent worry about parents um peyton what's the most rewarding part of being a dad that's another good question

30:03 um wow most rewarding part i can tell you the times when it's rewarding is when you have been teaching something or talking about something and then you see it happen so an example of that is you know like me getting upset at some situation and you know telling my kids you know what hey i'm really sorry for the way i handled that and then just the other day my daughter

30:34 got upset you know said something yelled whatever and then comes back you know a minute later and says you know dad i'm really sorry i i just i got upset at a situation with my friend and i shouldn't have taken that out on you like when your children learn these life coping skills that i teach you know whether it's empathy and gratitude and all these things about you know taking responsibility for your emotions i mean there's so many things

31:06 that when your kids do that and you see that it's something that's going to benefit them for their life that that to me is the best you know you know sure there's the total answer of like a hug unconditional love you know all that stuff but like you s when you see that they are they're growing and they're maturing and they're using skills that you have given them in a very positive way and you know that those i mean i've worked

31:36 very very hard doing video just harder than i do working at these videos and helping everybody here i do it with my own family and so it is wonderful to see that result happen you know where my son you know goes over and is empathetic towards his friend you know or my daughter is communicating and she's upset and she's communicating with her friend about her feelings and saying listen i i i was upset at this situation i know it's you

32:07 know my fault but you know whatever it's just really cool seeing that um good stuff here people are good participating um monal uh my daughter wakes up angry and nothing is fast enough for her how do i teach her patients well she's one and a half you won't teach her patients yet um that's that's don't expect that you

32:38 will you know at that age they're not patient they're not going to be patient for years i mean some people are 40 years old and not patient so um don't i i think it goes the opposite i think it's you have to change your expectations that thinking that she's going to be patient or that she has to be a certain way i think you have to you know as parents this is what i teach so much of

33:02 we so often try to you know and i'm not i i apologize i'm not coming on i'm not coming um at you that you're incorrect i'm just trying to help i think what happens is as parents so and i did this for years um the the pro so many problems that we have are up here you know it is our problem

33:32 it's it is um you know we deal with things like it is it's like the exception or like accepting that it's our fault or you know we take responsibility for something or you know we blame ourselves or you know all of the psychological blah that we deal with we bring so much of that to our children and i had put this in my video the other day whereas like my children were being for all intents of purposes obnoxious they were

34:04 at dinner yelling or like just being wild you know they were they had come in from outside and they were just they had been playing and they're just energetic and everything well i came home from work and it's like i didn't want to hear any of that like i had not had a good day and i like for me it was just it was too much and so of course you know it's my problem it's not theirs like yes

34:29 they could be better and they could say you know they could calm down but it's like the fact that something annoys me or the fact that i get i mean i was talking with someone about the fact that somebody gets offended at something it's their issue it doesn't make what is being done correct it doesn't make what somebody does or says or acts out you know fine but it is your responsibility to handle how you react and so i'm

35:00 always you know i'm always interested and curious when someone's you know this is something i teach too of like you know you hurt my feelings like no you didn't you said something i decided for my feelings to be heard you know and we push our the responsibility of our emotions on everybody else and it's a waste it's a waste because they have no you're giving somebody else control of your emotions and and that's not that's not a good idea

35:30 you know it's the same thing of like somebody says something and two people are listening and one person gets completely offended by what the person said and the other person says that person's kind of crazy like why would they say that like it's not a big deal so what's the difference well two people heard the exact same thing but they interpret it different and they interpret it different because they assign different meanings to things

36:01 you know one person could have had trauma as a child related to that subject or they have a different cultural background and so they're offended by i mean it's there's so many reasons why that doesn't make it right wrong whatever it's just every one of us interpret things in our own way and we take so much of it personally that you know that's something that i think we push on to our children is that we get stressed out we get

36:32 impatient we get upset we get angry we get all these things but it's our job to change our responses to that and you know yes we need to teach our kids manners yes we need to teach our kids to be more patient and have gratitude and all of these things but we first got to work on ourselves and that's what i try to do with a lot of my videos and so you know a lot of the problem

37:03 [Music] with everybody and everyone's you know saying about they're so sensitive to everything is that is just that is everyone is hurting inside and when you are hurting or you get you know something affects you that deeply um usually there's a reason for that versus people that stuff you know somebody says somebody does and they're just like okay like that's up to you like that's your

37:34 thing and that kind of attitude has like shifted me like 180. you know like if my wife is upset at something oh it's never me no i'm just kidding um i can really look at it most of the time and be like you know she probably had a crappy day you know she's upset about something and you know what like is there anything i can do so like her yelling at me isn't in the past i

38:01 would have been totally offended and said like how dare you yell at me don't don't talk to me that way and granted she can be nicer in that i mean my wife doesn't know ever but it's really up to me on how i interpret it you know and i think that that's something that we need to [Music] need to keep in mind um so so with that um wow i stayed way later i hope my kids are uh

38:32 but uh thank you to everybody who hung around here it was fun uh maybe i'll try to do it again and make sure to give it a thumbs up if you haven't subscribed to the channel go do that and then also if you want any information about the program go to the website click on program sign up and get a call we can have a free chat um i'll talk to you guys soon take care